installing win 8.1 from a stick, use ntfs or fat32?

[NightPower]

Hi. I'm building my pc, and I have this Asus z97 motherboard that has UEFI. I want to install windows 8.1 Pro on my new hdd from a usb stick, but I'm not sure what format to make it. I don't plan on using the full uefi experience, meaning my mobo will have the compatibility support module on. I've looked this up, and some sites recommend the fat32 system, but I have no clue how that works, since I haven't made a stick in that format before, only in ntfs.

 

[bgunner]

the differences are: Fat32 only allows files up to 4GB / NTFS allows files of all sizes.

my suggestion is use NTFS so there is no issues installing the OS on to the flash media. You Need to eject the flash drive properly through the software or risk data corruption when using the NTFS file system. It is the same file system that HDD's use in Windows.

 

[NightPower]

As I discovered when I checked the size of the .iso, windows 8.1 pro takes up 3,81 Gbs, so it can't possibly fit on a 4 Gbs stick. So this means I can use the windows dvd/usb tool?

 

[bgunner]

There should be no need for the tool. As long as the stick is over the 4 GB mark you should have no issues with putting the ISO on the drive. Nothing new is needed. Also Since the ISO is only 3.81 GB you can leave the file format as Fat32 if you want (this is usually the default format when formatting a new Flash drive). USB 2 or USB 3 makes no difference in ability to be bootable media. Because the ISO automatically starts when the drive is selected to be booted from there is no special measures to take. In the bios just select the USB as the boot device and the .iso file should automatically start. I have not done a fresh install of Win 8/8.1 but Win 7/Vista/XP asks for you to press any key to start the install so watch for this at boot.

 

[NightPower]

I used the tool, but before doing this I changed the format from the default fat32 to ntfs. Odd thing is that after the tool finished it's thing, the stick now has 4 full Gbs of data on it. But the windows is only 3,83Gbs. I'll try booting with ntfs, if it doesn't work, I'll go with fat32.

 

[NightPower]

Ok, I can proudly say I'm writing from Win 8 now. It worked, it booted with the ntfs format. One thing I had to do, was to go in bios, then boot menu, and change the usb settings, so that they all get full power as soon as the pc powers on.